Barth grills 'Kat' Challenges her about previous version of events

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions of sex and/or violence that some readers may find offensive.

By Kimberley Haas

khaas@fosters.com

DOVER — Public defender Joachim Barth started his cross examination of Kathryn “Kat” McDonough Thursday morning by asking her if she remembers coming to his office and telling employees that she killed Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott while having sex with her.

“You described in detail that you were literally on her face for 10 to 15 minutes,” Barth said about the interview, which took place just a few days after Seth Mazzaglia, 31, of Dover, was arrested.

Barth continued to say that during a voluntary interview, McDonough, 20, told Mazzaglia's attorneys that Marriott was wearing a restraint that prevented her from lifting her head during bondage, domination and sadomasochism sex on Oct. 9, 2012. McDonough said Marriott had a seizure and subsequently died.

“You have since changed your story,” Barth said. “You have changed your account of what happened. You made that change while actively engaged in your immunity agreement.”

Barth said McDonough avoided years in prison and other charges that could have been brought against her because she agreed to testify in Mazzaglia's murder trial.

After his initial line of questioning, Barth started to build his case on Mazzaglia's behalf, claiming that it was McDonough who started describing her own multiple personalities to the defendant at the beginning of their relationship. During McDonough's testimony earlier this week, she described Mazzaglia as a person with many personas, such as “Dark Heart” and “Cyrus.”

“At this point, the voices in your own mind are literally arguing among themselves,” Barth said after reading a Facebook passage from the beginning of their relationship.

McDonough said she simply wanted to be intriguing to Mazzaglia, who was 28 when the couple met.

McDonough was a 17-year-old junior at Portsmouth High School when she met Mazzaglia while participating in a local theater production.

In reference to the character Charlotte, who was described as a “nameless demon” in the conversations McDonough had with Mazzaglia, McDonough said, “It's not like it was a split personality.”

“It was just a character that I pretended to be,” McDonough said.

Barth also asked McDonough about passages where she talked about dragon riding and being a cowboy in a past life. McDonough said she was just trying to think of ways to get closer to Mazzaglia.

“You were gaining with Mr. Mazzaglia to make him believe it was true?” Barth asked.

“I was just a 17-year-old kid,” McDonough said. “He liked it.”

“So you were just playing?” Barth asked.

McDonough said she was, even though Mazzaglia was taking her interactions with him seriously.

McDonough and Mazzaglia were involved in a bondage, domination and sadomasochism sexual relationship where they used ropes and leather restraints for pleasure. McDonough testified on Tuesday that once she moved into Mazzaglia's studio apartment on Mill Street, the couple had sex daily, sometimes up to nine times a day.

Barth also introduced evidence of a recorded conversation McDonough had with Roberta Gerkin of Rochester on Nov. 27, 2012. During that conversation, McDonough told Gerkin she was struggling with one of the characters in her head on the night Marriott died.

“Didn't you acknowledge to Roberta Gerkin that on the night of October 9th, while you were in your apartment you were affected by one of your inner voices?” Barth asked.

McDonough said she could not remember that, but she was not affected by any of the characters in her mind on the night Marriott was allegedly choked with a rope by Mazzaglia.

“You don't remember, but you do remember that it wasn't true,” Barth said. “You told (Gerkin) many things that weren't true.”

McDonough later said that during the course of her relationship with Mazzaglia, she was spending a lot of time with a person who thought all of those sorts of things were real.

“I had created the characters but I began to wonder,” McDonough explained. “I was really confused at the time.”

Thursday was the soft-spoken McDonough's third day on the witness stand. She testified on Wednesday that Mazzaglia killed Marriott after she refused to participate in sexual acts with the couple.

Before the start of Barth's cross examination, the prosecution submitted into evidence a letter Mazzaglia wrote to McDonough while in jail. It directed McDonough to blame a Rochester man for Marriott's death.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley introduced the three-page, double-sided letter sent to McDonough from an incarcerated Mazzaglia.

The letter included graphic details and hand-drawn pictures of the story Mazzaglia wanted to tell — that of a consensual threesome in which Marriott started to have a seizure. The letter goes on to say that another man, Paul Hickok, of Rochester, choked Marriott when he saw her on the floor of Mazzaglia's studio apartment on Mill Street. McDonough had called Hickok's girlfriend to come over to the apartment the night prosecutors say Marriott was raped and murdered.

Mazzaglia told McDonough to say that Marriott was curious about bondage, domination and sadomasochism.

“I choke her from behind with rope,” Mazzaglia wrote. “On-off, on-off, until we find a rhythm. Always I check, 'Are you okay?'”

Mazzaglia included details to show that Marriott consented to BDSM, saying, “I made it clear we could stop at any time.”

Mazzaglia said McDonough should say the couple panicked when they realized Marriott had a seizure while McDonough was sitting on her face.

“You dismount. I pull out. Panic. Her face is purple and swollen, her eyes were rolling and fluttering,” Mazzaglia wrote.

Mazzaglia directed McDonough to say that terrified with what police will say, and realizing Marriott's condition was stable, the couple called Roberta Gerkin of Rochester, Hickok's girlfriend.

He then wrote out a description of the scene he wanted McDonough to describe.

“He does it,” Mazzaglia wrote, saying McDonough should claim Hickok started to choke Marriott when he arrived at the apartment and that is what ultimately killed her.

“I grab his shoulders to pull him off. He hits my hand,” Mazzaglia wrote. “He looks at me and said 'if we talk' 'you die.'”

Hinckley asked McDonough, “Did Roberta's boyfriend Paul kill Lizzi?”

“Paul did not,” McDonough replied.

Hinckley asked what Hickok did while he was at the apartment on the night Marriott, 19, was killed.

“He said to call an ambulance to ask for help,” McDonough replied.

Hinckley asked McDonough who wrote the letter and drew out the graphic pictures. McDonough said Mazzaglia did. He asked McDonough if Marriott enjoyed anything Mazzaglia did to her on the night she died.

McDonough replied, “No.”

Hinckley also pointed to key passages written on the top of each page of the letter. On one page it said, “Memorize, make your own, but keep the details.”

Underneath that, there were the instructions to rip the letters up and flush them down a toilet.

“Annihilate,” Mazzaglia wrote under the instructions.

Mazzaglia is on trial for first- and second-degree murder. Prosecutors claim he choked Marriott with a rope as she sat on the floor in front of his futon watching a movie with McDonough. They say he raped Marriott's limp body and then tied a plastic bag that was placed over her head.

The defense claims it was McDonough who killed Marriott.

One thing that both sides agree upon is that Mazzaglia and McDonough tried to cover up their role in Marriott's death by disposing of her body and belongings. Marriott's body was dumped at Peirce Island in Portsmouth and has never been recovered from the water it was placed in. Her SUV was left abandoned at the University of New Hampshire, where she was a transfer student studying marine biology. Marriott's clothing and personal possessions were thrown from her car or placed in various local dumpsters hours after she was killed.